Well, another Halloween has come and gone, and while believers-in-Christ run the gamut in their opinions on how to celebrate Halloween, or if  to celebrate it (or shun it)...I'm just going to admit that we hand out candy every year, and I have fun doing it.   There is something that lights-my-extrovert-fire to see and experience total strangers (and neighbors and friends) going door to door, smiling, chatting, and connecting with each other.  Yes, there are sometimes spooky and scary costumes and masks, but on the whole, I enjoy the personal contact and community within our neighborhood each October 31st.   But not this year.  For some reason, as the trick-or-treat day wore on, I was softly building a dread for the evening's coming activities.  I felt a heaviness in my heart for the secular-delight of this night, and a sadness in my spirit for the lack-of-Lord within this "holiday" soon to be celebrated by so many.   This Halloween was t...

What would happen if we told the truth today?  God's  truth.   “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  ~Matthew 3:2 John the Baptist told the truth.   God's truth .   And do we know what happened? People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. ( 6) Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.  ~Matthew 3:5-6 John didn't dress up God's Word with trending church ("worship") music.  John did not dress himself up to look popular or fashionable: quite the contrary.  Even by the standards of the first century AD...John dressed (and ate!) and marched to the beat of his own unconventional drum:   John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.   ~Matthew 3:4 This  ( clothes made of camel's hair  and eating locusts and wild honey ) is how John came before the ...